A sharp-eyed, female army observer led the way to thwart the Hamas breakout.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
The IDF eliminated over the weekend 11 Hamas terrorists emerging from tunnels in Rafah and took six in for questioning after they gave themselves up.
On Friday morning, a female observer in the Southern Brigade of the Gaza Division watching camera feeds from the skies over Rafah was the first to spot a group of five armed men leaving a tunnel entrance on the Israeli side of the Yellow Line.
A., the observers’ commander, praised the young recruit’s sharp eyes, telling Walla Saturday, “Even I had to look at the film more than twice to figure out how she identified [the force] with such clarity.”
First two men emerged from the tunnel, she said, then another three.
“We closed in on them and then a Zik [drone] bombed them,” she said.
The same observer then saw other terrorists running away, A. explained, and IDF troops were sent to the site to search for them.
The commander said, “We help protect the forces who are fighting and maneuvering in this sector…. We’re doing the most important job that girls can do, second only to those who are in combat roles.”
An IDF spokesperson said later that about 15 terrorists had left their underground passages from two different exit points on the Israeli side.
“Six have been eliminated so far,” the spokesperson said Saturday. “In parallel, combat teams from the Nahal Brigade arrested five terrorists who turned themselves in to our forces and they were taken to Israel for further interrogation by the Shin Bet.”
Another terrorist surrendered to the Nahal troops separately.
According to the IDF, it is “very likely” that these terrorists were part of the group for which Hamas has been requesting safe passage for the last several weeks, which the U.S. has reportedly been unsuccessfully pressing Israel to agree to.
Media estimates of the number of terrorists hiding under Rafah vary from several dozen to 200.
Army Radio reported that the IDF has been active for weeks in the Janina neighborhood it most suspects as their center of operations, blowing up tunnels and boring into the ground in multiple places.
It believes that it is successfully closing in on the terrorists, which is forcing them to leave the tunnels, the report said.
News of the elimination and capture of so many terrorists almost at once has Gazan social media in a turmoil, according to Israeli monitor Abu Ali Express, which noted that Hamas is calling on Gazans to only listen to official Hamas announcements and not to believe what the IDF spokesperson says, because Israel is using “psychological warfare” against them.
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